How does God know that he's all knowing?

[Aloysium]

If I understood God that way, I’d be an atheist too.
Consider that God is being.
If it exists, it is and God knows it.
If A or B or C or whatever exist, God knows them.
Go figure that God even knows thing that don’t exist.

 

[polytropos]

Let’s assume that A is all of existence, and that B is God, the universe, Heaven, Hell – everything that God is, created, and perceives.

Perhaps you have your own theology or religion. But there is not a difference between your A-space and your B-space. They are coextensive in Catholic theology. There is no “existence” that is not either God or God’s creation.

I would also nitpick about the word “perceives.” Men and animals perceive when their brains interpret sense data. God knows. God does not rely on sense data and does not need any material body in order to convert sense data into something His mind understands.

In B-space, all things are God; but he is completely unaware of A-space except for that which is B-space.

Now here is the thing, relative specifically to B-space God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. There is nothing he can’t do, be, or know within B-space. He simply is unaware of non-B-space.

Omniscience is defined as all-knowing. If there is anything that exists about which God does not know, then God is not all-knowing. The God you have posited is not omniscient. There is no “relative” omniscience. There is no partial omniscience. “I know part of all.” Then you don’t know all.

Imagine another scenario where at the same level within A-space there is also C-space. It is another entiy just like our God. He too creates a universe within himself and all that he knows. It would be possible that not only would the Gods of B-space and C-space not be aware of A-space outside of their own spaces, but they would then not be aware of each other.

Not only is God not omniscient in your system, but He’s not one!

 

[JacquesMaritain]

Hi:

I don’t know if I can be of much use on this topic, but here’s my (admittedly brief) thought. Knowledge is, presumably, information or data about the world that we live in; theoretically, we can organize our sense data in any one of a number of ways, which we call our experience of the universe. Now information is meaningless unless it can be communicated; that is to say, it has to be capable of being expressed (say, by some form of writing or speech or abstract thought). Presumably you could get a million monkeys typing random characters on computer keyboards, and eventually they would write down every piece of information about the universe, if we had enough time (and enough monkeys); but the thing is, most of what they would type would not really be “knowledge”. It would rather be nonsensical garbage, random characters with no meaning. “Knowledge” (what we think about/talk about/read about) only seems to acquire meaning when it has some correspondence with the exterior world; otherwise it is not really knowledge at all, but rather falsehood. The random monkeys (or computer “knowledge” generators) could type out every possible combination of letters, including the sentence “a man has two legs” and “a man has five legs”, “a man has three tails”, “a man has five hundred eyes” and so forth. Most of this is nonsense, but the one statement that corresponds with a verifiable reality (the first) is considered by most of us to be “knowledge”.

What I am trying to say is that knowledge is by necessity a small subset of all the language strings/sentences/word fragments/statements that can possibly be generated; indeed it is a vanishingly small subset, that is to say, the subset that matches the experience of the world. Thus, F=ma communicates useful knowledge, and statements like F=mgh or F = mv or F = (^&% do not (mgh is Gravitational Potential Energy, and mv is momentum…(^&% is just random rubbish). Thus omniscience is a bounded subset, I think; to be omniscient merely means to be aware of which conceivable thoughts actually correspond to the world-at-large, not to know all possible combinations of statements (most of which are rubbish).

Seeing as God (presumably) made the universe and all the things in it, it would seem reasonable to conclude that He knows which statements generated by our monkeys correspond to the reality of the world, and which do not. Thus He is omniscient in the only sense of the word that matters; He knows what He has made, so He must know what statements we make about the world are true, and which are false. Thus our monkeys could write an almost infinite number of statements like “Plutonium is an inert gas which is healthy to breathe”, but these statements would not be knowledge, so God would not concern Himself with them. If knowledge really is “bounded” in this way, it is sufficient to simply know that a particular thing is true, and to know what other things are true about all the other things in the universe (a large but finite undertaking). But if you made the universe, this would be a mere bagatelle, as they say.

I don’t know if this helps or not. I’m considering omniscience as having the knowledge of the truth/falsity of every conceivable statement we can create; after awhile the monkeys would stop generating anything that told us something “new” (something we did not already know) about the universe…when that happened, we would have covered all categories that describe the universe, and they would have typed everything meaningful, and we would have sorted out what was true/false, and thus would know everything, and be “omniscient”. This would clearly take a long time, but as long as the universe is finite (and it seems to be so, according to the astronomers), it can be done in a finite amount of time. Once a creature has done this, he is “omniscient”. God must have already done this to make the universe we now live in; He could not create a planet, say, if He did not already fully understand (know) physics, chemistry, geology, and so forth. This may not be the same as your definition. If not, my apologies.

Jacques

 

[Aloysium]

From Wikipedia:

In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes Crested Macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website.
Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by doing very rude things to it. Phillips said that the artist-funded project was primarily performance art, and they had learned “an awful lot” from it. He concluded that monkeys “are not random generators. They’re more complex than that. … They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there.”

 

[JacquesMaritain]

From Wikipedia:

In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes Crested Macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website.
Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by doing very rude things to it. Phillips said that the artist-funded project was primarily performance art, and they had learned “an awful lot” from it. He concluded that monkeys “are not random generators. They’re more complex than that. … They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there.”

Hi Aloysium:

A fair point LOL The monkeys are, of course, a metaphor. Teach a group of supercomputers how to write in English, and then let them generate every possible sentence that can fit on a series of pages, if you prefer. The task seems infinite, but it is a bounded problem, and it can be done in a finite amount of time, presuming that you have enough computers. The real problem becomes: how long can the statement be? If an idea is so complicated that it cannot be expressed in a finite number of pages, I’m not sure that it is “knowledge” in any meaningful sense of the word. I think knowledge has to be communicable to be real. That makes the task doable, I think.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Perhaps you have your own theology or religion. But there is not a difference between your A-space and your B-space. They are coextensive in Catholic theology. There is no “existence” that is not either God or God’s creation.

I’m presenting this as a premise. I’m saying what if there is existence beyond what God is and what God created. You have to at least put your toe in the water and ponder the premise before dismissing it out of hand, otherwise why bother even doing any philisophical exercise?

So let’s ask what are the usual arguments that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

1) The Bible says so
Let’s assume that the Bible is accurate when God states that he is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. Let’s also assume that my theory of A-space and B-space is accurate. What are the ways that both premises can be accurate?
1a) God is only aware of B-space
God is truthful in stating his power and accomplishments because that is all he knows. He is the beginning, the end, and all things in-between for as much as he can comprehend.
1b) God is aware of A-space, yet describes his power to humans in a way that we can understand.
Often times when asked about passages in the Bible where the plain meaning of words might not jive with other passages or with what we know of the world today, apologists (including budding ones on CAF) will explain that God and the Bible will use words that convey meaning to a people that may be limited in their capability of understanding. If my two premises above are true, perhaps God is aware of something beyond him; and when God talks about his infinite wisdom and power and presence he understands that it’s within the realm of B-space yet doesn’t see the need to sully his message to a people who could never really comprehend it.

2) It is argued that the Creator MUST be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
Numerous theologians and apologists have argued the the being who created the universe must possess those three qualities. So we take a leap and assume this crazy idea of A-space and B-space is true, that God created all that is B-space and controls all within it. It could be argued that is not necessary that God knows all of, has power over all of, and is present within all of A-space. It is only necessary that he knows all of, has power over all of, and is present within all of B-space.

Remember those three terms are not in the Bible, but are used in arguments by people who assume that there is nothing beyond God and his creation. Since you’re getting hung up on the notion of relative omniscience, let’s define new terms to describe God’s power, presence, and knowledge within the universe he created. I could have accurately used the suffix “homo” but decided to go with “mono”.

God is “mononipotent”. He is all power within the universe as he and we know it.
God is “monoscient”. He has all knowledge within the universe as he and we know it.
God is “monopresent”. He is everywhere within the universe as he and we know it.

So to sum up and get back to the question the OP posed, I argue that it is possible that God may not be truly all-knowing.

 

[polytropos]

So you would like to redefine the problem by positing the possible existence of other gods and other universes. You then avoid the usual complications of having multiple gods that are all omniscient or omnipotent or omnipresent by modifying the scenario further so that they are not actually omniscient or omnipotent or omnipresent. Because you posit that their domains overlap in no ways, they do not conflict and the usual contradictions don’t arrive.

I cannot disprove that. If the gods whose existence you are positing are external to the knowledge of God, even, then they are certainly external to the knowledge of me. But since they are external to both of our knowledge, you are left with the task of demonstrating why it is sensible to posit their existence.

I do not think the quality of omniscience is inherently contradictory, as the OP suggests. I don’t think the model for the universe has to be modified in such a way that limits God so that He just thinks he is omniscient.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

But since they are external to both of our knowledge, you are left with the task of demonstrating why it is sensible to posit their existence.

There would be no way to prove my speculation. I’m only looking to show that it is a possibility, which demonstrates that if God is true that there is no way to definitively show that he is absolutely all-knowing.

 

[Aloysium]

There would be no way to prove my speculation. I’m only looking to show that it is a possibility, which demonstrates that if God is true that there is no way to definitively show that he is absolutely all-knowing.

God eludes comprehension; whenever you think you’ve got him pinned down - nope that’s not quite it. Guess that’s what happens when one tries to undestand something that isn’t some thing.

 

[polytropos]

There would be no way to prove my speculation. I’m only looking to show that it is a possibility, which demonstrates that if God is true that there is no way to definitively show that he is absolutely all-knowing.

It’s not really about us showing that He is all-knowing. The topic is about whether God can know that he is all-knowing.

Here is a proof of God’s omniscience that I posted earlier, as well as the OP’s response to a similar argument. The OP has similar concerns to you.

Where is the contradiction, exactly? There is a problem in learning everything and becoming omniscient through some method of inquiry, since you can’t prove a negative and therefore could not be certain that there is not something that you have not learned. But there is not a problem with being omniscient.

1. Premise: God is omniscient.
2. It is true that God is omniscient.
3. By 1., God knows 2.

Ridgerunner –
“If God is omniscient, then He knows everything, by definition. If He is omniscient, He knows He is, by definition.”

These are indeed definitions of omniscience, but they do not answer my question. ** I cannot think of any way that one could sufficiently prove to oneself or anyone else that they are omniscient.** This is what I’m asking.

The problem as I see it lies in the ideas of knowledge and belief. God can believe himself to be in a state of omniscience and believe that he comprehends everything. And in that belief claim that he is justified in knowing that he is in that state, but how can he know that he is not mistaken. That question of knowing is always an unknown and therefore a limitation.

Even if God is not temporal and, unlike us, “sees” his entire knowledge set instantaneously. I don’t see how he gets around the problem of not knowing if something is outside of that set.

What test could be performed to show that nothing is outside of that set?

The problem is that “knowing a thing” is not just “knowing of the existence of a thing.” (This is why we say that we can know of the existence of God, although we cannot fully know God, who is beyond comprehension.) Knowing a thing includes knowing its qualities.

If God is omniscient, then God knows His own qualities. Then God knows that one of His qualities is omniscience. For God to be omniscient, He would have to know of any limitations that He has. By omniscience, He would find that He has none.

To show that God’s omniscience is contradictory, you must assume that God is omniscient and demonstrate that it leads to a contradiction. If you assume that God is “monoscient,” you are not assuming that God is omniscient.

If you look back to the parts of the OP’s post that I bolded, both of his objections (like yours) begin with assuming that God is not omniscient. One can conceive of a being that is deluded into believing that it is omniscient, and therefore wrongly concludes that it is omniscient, but since that being is not omniscient to begin with, it can’t be used to derive a contradiction in the nature of omniscience.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

If you look back to the parts of the OP’s post that I bolded, both of his objections (like yours) begin with assuming that God is not omniscient. One can conceive of a being that is deluded into believing that it is omniscient, and therefore wrongly concludes that it is omniscient, but since that being is not omniscient to begin with, it can’t be used to derive a contradiction in the nature of omniscience.

I completely agree. I am no philosopher, just a guy spending his Saturday playing board games on his computer . I’m sure there are real philosophers who might want to take a stab at discussing an omniscience contradiction, but that’s not me.

Edited to add:
I think I see what’s happening. I’ve been arguing the title of the topic (“How does God know that he’s all knowing?”), whereas the OP was really discussing the nature and limits of omniscience.

 

[polytropos]

I completely agree. I am no philosopher, just a guy spending his Saturday playing board games on his computer . I’m sure there are real philosophers who might want to take a stab at discussing an omniscience contradiction, but that’s not me nor honestly was it something I was even trying to argue.

Sorry if I misinterpreted your intentions! I really don’t think there is a contradiction in the concept of omniscience, although some have raised objections about omnipotence.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Sorry if I misinterpreted your intentions! I really don’t think there is a contradiction in the concept of omniscience, although some have raised objections about omnipotence.

No need to be sorry! I realize now the confusion was from my end. I edited my post just before you posted last when I realized what was happening. You (naturally and rightfully so) thought I was discussing true honest-to-goodness omniscience, since it was the point of the OP. On the other hand, I was actually going off on my tangent about deluded omniscience, relative omniscience, mononiscience (whatever you ever want to call it) to argue the question from the title of the topic. Sorry about that!

 

[Domini_cane]

It takes infinite comprehension to comprehend infinite comprehension.

 

[Sparkythedog]

It takes infinite comprehension to comprehend infinite comprehension.

if that is the case, how do you know that there is such a thing as infinite comprehension?

 

[Richca]

I’ve heard christians say that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.

I’m curious about omniscience. How would God know that he knew everything? How would he know that there wasn’t something outside of his knowledge?

Also, if he is all knowing, how could God demonstrate that to us?

Any thoughts?

God knows himself just as you and me know our own thoughts and know what we know. Since God is infinite, His knowledge is infinite.

If there was something outside of God’s knowledge, than God wouldn’t be God. We believe God to be the supreme perfect being. If there is something outside His knowlege, then He wouldn’t be perfect nor would he be supreme. " I am Yahweh, and there is no other; there is no God but Me." (Isaiah 45:5).

 

[Sparkythedog]

God knows himself just as you and me know our own thoughts and know what we know. Since God is infinite, His knowledge is infinite.

If there was something outside of God’s knowledge, than God wouldn’t be God. We believe God to be the supreme perfect being. If there is something outside His knowlege, then He wouldn’t be perfect nor would he be supreme. " I am Yahweh, and there is no other; there is no God but Me." (Isaiah 45:5).

What does it mean to have infinite knowledge? Don’t just answer that right away but take time to think about what that would mean. What does infinite mean? Is it possible to view an infinite set of things? How would you test that you had an infinite amount of knowledge?

We can know things by different means. How do we know 2+2=4? How do we know if its raining outside? How do we know if we like a piece of music?

My question is not “is God omniscient”? My question is how does God know he is omniscient. The tautological statement “God knows that he knows everything because he knows everything” is not an explanation of how. How does God know?

 

[polytropos]

What does it mean to have infinite knowledge? Don’t just answer that right away but take time to think about what that would mean. What does infinite mean? Is it possible to view an infinite set of things? How would you test that you had an infinite amount of knowledge?

Well, no one has ever observed anything infinite, so we can only guess. I would not think of it as “infinite” knowledge but “all” knowledge, knowing all things.

If you know all things, you don’t have to “test” that you know all things, because you know it.

We can know things by different means.

We can, although methods of learning are different from knowing.

How do we know 2+2=4?

Deduction in a logical system. The natural numbers are abstracted from reality. The operation of addition is defined.

How do we know if its raining outside?

Most reliably? We go look. We could also check the weather channel or ask a friend–although those are less certain methods.

How do we know if we like a piece of music?

Subjective. We decide after listening to it.

My question is not “is God omniscient”? My question is how does God know he is omniscient. The tautological statement “God knows that he knows everything because he knows everything” is not an explanation of how. How does God know?

You’re right, the question is not “is God omniscient?” We are assuming that he is and checking to see if such a concept is contradictory. So please, demonstrate the logical contradiction.

There is not a contradiction, however. Don’t go on about tautologies. The problem is that you are questioning a proposition (God knows that He knows everything because he’s omniscience) that logically follows from your assumption (God is omniscient). One cannot conceive of an omniscient God that does not know he is omniscient. It’s nonsensical.

 

[Sparkythedog]

If you know all things, you don’t have to “test” that you know all things, because you know it.

Let me try to explain my question about omniscience in a different way. When I asked “How do we know it’s raining?” I was wanted to get to the processess of how we know.

We go look.

But how do we know what to look for? How do we distinguish between snow and rain? …or water coming out of a sprinkler? We are putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Does the sky have clouds? Yes. Is water falling from them? Yes. Is it in liquid form? Yes. The we know it’s raining.

Knowledge is not just the answers to test but the components and the test itself. We have questions because we do not always have all the pieces of the puzzle.

You’re right, the question is not “is God omniscient?” We are assuming that he is and checking to see if such a concept is contradictory. So please, demonstrate the logical contradiction.

That’s not exactly what I’m asking. If God is omniscient, then what knowledge does he have to know this?

Imagine a room full of stuff with no windows or doors (no access to the outside) and, on a desk in that room, sits a computer. The computer runs a simulation of that room. The room “knows” everything about itself. Nothing can be hidden from the room - you cannot hide a pencil under the desk and have the room forget that it. It will always be there until it is moved. If you push the pencil off the desk the room “knows” all the forces regarding how it will physically interact with the floor. The room understands the totality of it’s existence. The room is omniscient.

The computer, on the other hand, must make calculations based on measurements taken from the room. If you push the simulated pencil onto the simulated floor, the computer needs to take time to calculate it’s position, weight, and material to make an approximation of how a pencil would interact with the floor.

Both the computer and the room are going through the same process. Gravity is acting on a pencil that was pushed off the desk. Both will fall for a period and react to the floor. But the room intrinsically “knows” what the pencil will do without without having to “do calculations” where as the computer must make an educated guess.

We could study the actual pencils motion in finer and finer detail and to understand more of the room’s “knowledge” and find all the forces acting on the pencil that cause it to fall and land on the floor in a particular way.

The room is analogous to God and the computer to us. God doesn’t need to calculate because the numbers are there already. The work is already shown. He knows the path of the pencil from start to finish.

My question isn’t just, “Where did the pencil land?”. It’s “Where was the pencil during the fall?” and “Where did it start?”.

If God is omniscient then he certainly knows everything (and yes, that statement is a tautology). But there would be a line of reasoning leading up to “I am omniscient.” And being omniscient, God would know what that line of reasoning is. God doesn’t need to think about the reasons, they are already laid out because God sees the entirety of the puzzle, pieces and all.

My question is, “What is the line of reasoning that I can use in my simulation of Gods understanding?”

 

[Aloysium]

. . . My question is, “What is the line of reasoning that I can use in my simulation of Gods understanding?”

:twocents:

How do you know you exist? It would be something similar, i.e. obvious.